Californians may have voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 8 to legalize marijuana, but Americans also elected Donald Trump, whose position on legalization has been a bit — hazy. That's a potential problem because marijuana is regulated under federal law, giving Trump and his administration veto power over whether California and the seven other states that have voted to legalize cannabis can really do so.

So where does the president-elect stand on pot? He has said he supports individuals' right to use medical marijuana "100%," which is good news for the 29 states that allow medicinal use of pot. As for adult recreational use, which Californians approved through Proposition 64, it's hard to say what he believes because his statements have been all over the map, shifting from audience to audience.

During a Senate hearing in April on how the Department of Justice was dealing with states that have legalized cannabis, Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions, an Alabama GOP senator, declared that "good people don't smoke marijuana." And he's been a frequent critic of the Obama administration's hands-off approach to states that allow medical and recreational marijuana.

For the last three years, the Justice Department's policy has been to not interfere with states that allow the commercial sale of marijuana as long as there are strict regulations in place, including rules to prevent sales to minors and to block criminal enterprises from participating. Sessions, however, has said the DOJ's policy is wrong. "We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it's in fact a very real danger," he declared in April.

If Sessions does take charge of the Justice Department, he could reverse the DOJ policy and undermine California's new rules. That would be a step backward. In most of the states that have voted to legalize marijuana, commercialization has ushered in much-needed regulation.

Even if the new administration doesn't reverse the Justice Department policy, it will still need to be a partner in creating common-sense policies. For example, because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, pot shops typically can't open bank accounts or accept credit cards because financial services companies fear being penalized by federal regulators for handling money from unlawful drug sales.

That means marijuana products are typically sold for cash, and dispensary owners pay their employees, their landlords and their taxes in cash, inviting crime and making it harder to regulate the sale of cannabis.

Decades of experience has shown that the U.S. can't win a war on marijuana. It would be foolhardy for the federal government to dig in on cannabis prohibition now, when voters are increasingly choosing to legalize the drug for medicinal and recreational use. Trump and his attorney general ought to adhere to the will of state voters and demonstrate the kind of pragmatic leadership on marijuana policy that has too often been missing in the federal government.

FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES